A topic about castle defence.

Here are two issues on which I would like to point your attention, both are connected to defence rather than offence. So I made one topic. Here we discuss them all together and maybe DEVs will find something useful in them.

Idea number one.
Today people prefer building high walls with wooden stairs on one side of it to jump over that wall. Doors are not that popular. Why? They cost more than walls and don't give any extra protection.
What to do? Implement some sort of reinforced doors- that would be twice or alike stronger than modern ones. How to make them? Ideally iron doors would be perfect. There already were diffirent ideas on adding iron nodes into game to be used in upgrades, buildings or weapons production. So I am offering new reinforced doors.

Idea number two.
It came when I thought of two strange issues in game.
First- workers carry lots of stones with them but can not drop them from towers or walls. That is unrealistic.
Second- when enemy troops come close to the wall and start destroying it or digging under or even building ladders- there is almost no way to stop them except from jumping down and starting fighting. That is so unrealistic too:)
So what I offer- is to give workers an ability to drop stones below them or 2-3 tiles away. Similar to catapult, however with extremely low distance and no damage when the falling distance is low. This stones would break ladders and damage enemies making them hiding under shields or thinking about some sort of protection.

So, these were my ideas to make that game more realistic and even more fun.

 

I like the idea of throwing rocks. But it would be better to build a mechanism for that.

"there is almost no way to stop them except from jumping down and starting fighting. That is so unrealistic too:)"

Not true, archers can shoot at them, soldier can throw bombs... as long as the tower is properly built.

 

I like the idea of throwing stones, but like Vania said, it would be more "appropiate" if the builder could build a defense that does that (come on! think of THROWING HOT OIL! xD)

 

F12 at both ideas.

 

Bombs usually damage your own wall, that was built with such a diligence :)
And archers sometimes can't reach enemies at all, especially when there is small hole in the wall.

A mechanism to throw rocks- it's a catapult. Does lot's of damage to troops below, however it's easily destroyed and pretty expensive on resources. But that's better than nothing :D

Hot oil sounds great- but how will be it done and implemented?

 

Personally I'd say that the pot for holding the oil would be made from iron and wood, like 1 iron and 1 wood for each block, with a size of 4x4. The oil should be some sort of ammunition purchased with gold or made with some other resources. It would deal heavy amounts of damage and penetrates shields but only does damage to the column of tiles below it.

Edit: Simple illustration made with paint.

 

the same oil or whatever could be used to light the flame arrows! http://kagforum.com/viewtopic.php?id=185

i agree that oil should fall only on the same tile column, no ignited oil hose of death xD ...right??

it would be great also that when you kick someone there would be a catapult throwing his body adn exploding midair... or a guillotine that cuts his head to "make an example" not useful, just pure cosmetic fun xD

 

OK, now we have a construction of 4 tiles, that pours oil below the wall. How long will it burn below when poured out or absolutely no burn? Will it destroy the ladders below?
And how long will it take to reload that pot of oil? Seems to be too low efficient for me if poured only to one tile.

The only plus if compared to catapult- that there is no damage to own walls and hardened floor.

 

well that can be easily adjusted for balancing and stuff. Prolly about 3 or 4 uses per load.

 

I agree with the iron doors so people actually use them in castles and also benefit to the current users, for the throwing rocks thing it should be a mechanism or something like they said /\

 

First of all, citing "realistic" as the sole reason for including a feature is monumentally stupid. However there are some important things to be taken from your post.

I think that your bit about doors (while misguided) highlights an important issue as its sort of a smaller model of the fundamental problem with architecture as a whole. The issue, really, is thus:

Assuming competence, and enemy will always take the path of least resistance.

Seems simple, right? But consider the implications. Wherever you fortify the most, the enemy will not go. We can see this in the extensive use of skybridges and tunneling. We all have looked at keeps and thought "that would be suicide to attack head on". Who in their right mind would try to attack through your three layers of doors, murder holes ahead with catapults raining down upon your head. Makes sense, right? But again consider the implications. What exactly, is the point of of fortifying a position if the enemy is not going to engage it? I think that all of these base defenses actually weaken the strength of castles. Consider the following:

1. Enemies will take the path of least resistance
2. You want enemies to engage your fortifications
therefore,
3. You fortifications must be the weakest point in your defense.

However one more consideration must be thrown into the mix. Assuming future builds will make raids important, you will need to be able to get in AND out of your base. I have spent most of my KAG time on effective offense, pushing right up to their tent. The most effective defenses go one way.

Necessitating traffic in and out of a castle in conjunction with weak doors is one way to mandate weakness, therefore giving castles meaning.

Another way to give castles meaning is to give to people inside some sort of advantage, separate from obstructing enemy movement. This is done in several ways.
1. A roof to protect from enemy projectile fire
2. High ground
3. Easy retreat paths

While this decreases the weakness of the position, it doesn't decrease the attractiveness of attacking said position as much as something like tougher walls. The benefits can passively affect your ability to defend areas both below and above the fortification. For example 2-3 tile high walls for archers to jumpshot over can be used to attack skybridgers and the cover provided by the castle can make a good foundation for mounting a counteroffensive against tunnelers, giving you a good forward entrance to the underground protected from projectiles. This is also a way to give castles meaning, even when not being directly attacked. In fact they give invaders additional incentive to engage a castle, in addition to being a way of progressing deeper into enemy territory.

So to make the game include castle engagements, basically sieges, as an important part of gameplay, it is necessary to mitigate other paths as effective choices. These choices being
1. Above the castle
2. Below the castle
Tunneling below has been considerably weakened by the extension of mining time, a very good thing. However, skybridging above is still extremely common and is a very simple and effective circumvention of fortifications with the built in passive advantage of high ground. The devs are hard at work on this and I have faith that we'll soon have a great fix.

However, even if ladders in the sky are fixed, that doesn't entirely fix the problem. I've seen people build sky bridges out of stone. This demonstrates that in some cases even committing a lot of stone is easier than simply engaging castles.

What is one key difference between building sky bridges and attacking castles? Building vs Destroying. The power of building is an important factor in the ineffectiveness of direct attack. Have you ever been digging through an enemy wall, maybe with a buddy helping you out and a couple of archers waiting at the back? If you have you've probably known the frustration that comes from having one enemy worker simply build whenever you destroy. As a builder and against builders we've all seen how effective building on the move is. It is very simply to block off pursuers with a single stone. Builders build quicker than their stuff can be destroyed. I think that this is a problem. In my opinion you should have to secure an area with combat before any real building can take place. This has been mitigated somewhat by the recent inclusion of bombs, allowing quick and devastating (but limited) tile destruction.

However, this brings us back to skybridges. Bombs are a gravity biased destructive tool. It is very difficult to apply bombs to sky bridghes when the skybridges are above you. Catapults are decent vs skybridges, but that brings up the issue of stone and wood economy (addressed tentatively last patch) and attrition.

Attrition is another key word here and it ties directly into the subjects of building vs destroying. In combat both sides lose something*. It takes sacrifice on you part to destroy other stuff*. "*"s were included in those statements as it is not necessarily true but for all intents and purposes it might as well by. Lets look at several different scenarios involving the power of building vs destroying. Building > Destroying = Stagnancy. Building = Destroying = Stagnancy. Destroying > Building = Disorder. However this is only addressing the monotonous power of workers and knights to build a destroy. The key differentiating factor is combat. The flow of combat determines who will have the most time and men to build/destroy.

more isssues: duality of building/destruction
directional bias in construction
the effects of architecture on combat and how this effects construction/destruction and pushing balance

fuck ive spent too much time on this. maybe ill finish it later. goddamnit there are too many issues to talk about and too many connections between those issues. someone please holler if you kind of get what im saying

 

Countrary, you forgot about upcooming CTF mode, there strong defences will be needed :P

 

@Contrary- I‘ve read the first part of your post and disagreed to most of the aspects. I started writing an answer when the second part appeared. So I have to reread all the post and then rewrite all the answer. So I really hate you now :P
Will do it tomorrow then.

 

Workers carry stones and are able to build catapults to get rid of them.
If attackers won't be able to penetrate defences head-on, skybridges will be used.

 

i look forward to it

 

I’ll try to speak shorter and my English level is quite lower so I hope my post will be easier to make out.
Let me start speaking about purpose of defending. How I see it in this game. The main purposes of defensive buildings that came to my mind:
-to give protection to those who are inside.
That's most obvious and most important feature of defending. Protection for workers and especially for sacks with gold is a necessity. That includes giving benefits for those who fight inside or on higher ground, rather to those who attack. At the same time the friendly troops should get no problems by getting in or out the castle.

-to win time
If a wall or a tower requires less time to be built than to be destroyed or to be outflanked by a sky bridge or a tunnel then it is a successful one. Opponents waste more time which means we mine more gold or build catapults or spend more time in
attacks or whatever. Especially that is well seen- when 2-3 players manage to hold down 5-6 opponents or a continious time.

-to obtain territorial benefits and to control ground.
After the last patch there is more gold in the centre than in other parts of the map. So building a strong fortification to control central ground for the first 10-15 minutes is a victory on most of the maps.

Now to speak about the path of least resistance.
1. I really hope sky bridges to be fixed soon, so I don't want to take them in concern seriously.
2. The path of least resistance is great when we speak about electricity. However our opponents are real people- some of which prefer building, others mine and the third ones prefer fights. The are always the third ones- who don't care how terrifying your fortress looks- they always come and try hitting into the most protected part.
3. About building a tunnel. It’s often a long way and might be easily prevented.
Small conclusion- now even the strongest walls are constantly attacked and in my opinion there is a balance now between defenders and attackers except one nasty thing that I’ll mention later. That’s how I see it.

And finally I am returning to my proposals. Idea number one- strengthened doors. I am not trying to think of some sort of an indestructible castle. Nope. Simply want to see more meaningful building process than it is now. As I said it is much cheaper now to build a high wall with ladders than with a door. And one door does not give normal protection- which leads to even bigger amounts of resources when several of them built in a row. I say- give us a steel door. That’s ok if enemies won’t try breaking it. The door will perform its functions by letting friendly troops in and out and keeping hostile troops away.


As can be seen from picture above- one wall can be used by one team, another by both ones.

At last returning to the second my idea with stone throwing. That nasty thing that I already mentioned is knights with bombs. If your defensive building is on enemy side of the map- prepare to have guys that come to your walls, drop grenades, die and come again. That’s some sort of imbalance making this game about bombermen, not about medieval wars. And when these guys stand under the wall- catapults already don’t reach them. Same to the wooden ladders that are built close to the wall. That’s why I offered giving workers a rock throwing ability or implementing some effective mechanism- like the pot with hot oil which was offered in this thread. However it shouldn’t be done straight away. Only then, when new siege machines that (were promised) will be added to keep the balance between defense and offence.

PS

Citing “realistic” I meant that these ideas were used in past, not that this a sole role to include in game.

 

Nope, catapults can't attack targets that stay close to the wall.

 

Someone gimme a tl;dr version.

 

tl;dr, read it